A History of the Presidential Turkey Pardon

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By WILL STOREY

November 27, 2013

Like most American traditions, the presidential turkey pardon is wrought with intrigue and legend. Now a holiday staple, the pardon was once merely a presentation – with the chosen birds going to the gallows rather than a farm in Virginia. Most presidents have had turkeys formally given to them, but it was not until the first President George Bush officially used the word “pardon” during the ceremony in 1989 that the custom formally began.

Iterations of the presentation go back to Abraham Lincoln, who in 1863, at the behest of his son Tad, spared a Christmas turkey from his table. Tad had adopted the bird, named it Jack and taught it to follow him around the White House grounds.

A Rhode Island poultry dealer named Horace Vose – in either a show of patriotism or as a means of boosting his business – bolstered the tradition by sending the chief executive his Thanksgiving turkey for four decades, starting with Ulysses S. Grant in the 1870s and ending after Mr. Vose died in 1913.

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Harry S. Truman is often said to have been the first to pardon, though he actually was the first to receive a bird from the National Turkey Federation, which will celebrate its 66th presentation this year. In 2003, the Truman Library clarified that the staff “has found no documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs, or other contemporary records in our holdings which refer to Truman pardoning a turkey that he received as a gift in 1947, or at any other time during his Presidency.”

Once again finding his way into American lore, John F. Kennedy is said to have spared a bird meant for his table on Nov. 19, 1963, just three days before he was assassinated. “We’ll just let this one grow,” he reportedly said before sending the turkey back to its farm.

Other presidents had plenty of photo ops with their birds – Ronald Reagan used Thanksgiving in 1987 to make a joke about pardoning a turkey in the midst of the Iran-contra affair – but President George Bush was the first to grant an official stay of execution, in his first year in office.

For a time early in this century, the pardoned birds were sent to Disneyland. More often, they went to farms in Virginia for public display. This year the birds will travel to the Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens for “Christmas at Mount Vernon.”

As a result of being bred to be much larger than a normal turkey, pardoned birds are better suited for being eaten than they are for surviving: only one of the birds pardoned by President Obama has lived to see the next Thanksgiving.